Jury Convicts MS-13 Leaders for Flushing and College Point Murders, Queens Sees Rare Lives-Without-Parole

The conviction of four MS-13 gang leaders signals a crucial, though partial, victory against organised crime’s grip on New York’s neighbourhoods—and exposes the persistent limits of law enforcement against transnational gangs.

When jurors at Brooklyn federal court rendered guilty verdicts on four men last week, they ended a grisly decade of crime perpetrated by the highest echelons of MS-13 operating on American soil. Two of those convicted, Edenilson Velasquez Larin and Hugo Diaz Amaya, rank not merely as local thugs but as national directors of a criminal syndicate more infamous for its brutality than its subtlety. Their conviction for racketeering and four gruesome murders in Queens and Long Island is a prosecutorial scalp that will echo from Flushing’s 109th Precinct to El Salvador’s jails.

What the jury validated was chilling. Over a ten-week trial, prosecutors pieced together a narrative of murders authorised or executed in cold blood: Victor Alvarenga, lured in Flushing in 2018 on suspicion of false gang fealty, and Eric Monge, slain in College Point in 2020 over rivalries so petty as to seem almost comic, were among the victims. The gang’s business—drug trafficking, extortion, and violence—operated through “cliques” with names straight from dystopian fiction, but its effects played out in all-too-real bloodshed on New York’s suburban fringes and city backstreets.

For New Yorkers, these convictions soothe nerves strained by years of lurid headlines. MS-13’s reputation for horror is not hype. The group, born in Los Angeles and shaped by Salvadoran civil war veterans, specialises in cruelty—machetes, dismemberment, messages scrawled in fear. For immigrant communities in Queens and Long Island, the threat is not abstract: targets have included not only rivals but civilians, witnesses, and wavering members. The promise of mandatory life sentences for Velasquez Larin, Diaz Amaya, Jose Espinoza Sanchez and Jose Arevalo Iraheta—respectively based in Colorado, Kansas, North Carolina, and Flushing—brings rare closure.

Yet beneath prosecutor Joseph Nocella’s declaration that “extremely dangerous MS-13 members have been brought to justice,” one must ask: how durable is this victory? Organised crime, alas, displays a cockroach resilience. The gang’s decentralised “clique” structure—mutually competitive but loosely coordinated—allows continuity even when kingpins are caged. The four men convicted were formidable, but not irreplaceable.

On a second order, the persistence of MS-13 bodes ill for New York’s efforts to both integrate immigrant youth and insulate them from predatory networks. The recipe is well known: young men, often from fractured families and precarious status, soar into the gang’s orbit in search of belonging or protection. Law enforcement sweeps are necessary but can sweep up the innocent, fueling mistrust or even galvanising recruitment. Community leaders in central Queens and Long Island warn that as long as social mobility lags and employment is patchy, the allure of a gang’s tribal structure remains buoyant.

The economic footprint of such gangs, while hard to quantify, is non-trivial. MS-13 may be best known for violence, but its forays into drug sales, extortion, and human trafficking multiply the burdens on New York’s police, hospitals, and schools. The cost is not just in lives lost but in the corrosion of trust: shopkeepers harassed for “protection” payments are less likely to invest or hire, and neighbours eye one another with wary suspicion.

A national and global shadow

The New York case plays into a bigger American and global drama. MS-13 is a vivid, if exaggerated, symbol for politicians looking to score points in immigration debates. Both Donald Trump and, in muted fashion, Joe Biden have invoked the gang to justify tough border measures. Yet international experience—particularly in El Salvador, where President Nayib Bukele’s mass incarcerations have produced temporary calm but long-term uncertainty—suggests that policing alone, without social investment, offers meagre returns.

Comparatively, New York’s record is mixed. Homicides attributed to MS-13 have fluctuated, but other cities—Los Angeles, Houston, Boston—report smaller shares. New York law enforcement’s forensic patience (with wiretaps, informants, and multi-year cases) is worthy of applause, but gangs are hydra-headed. The FBI and Department of Homeland Security say that MS-13’s estimated membership, both jailed and free, remains stable at several thousand nationwide.

The conviction’s deterrent value is hard to calibrate. For some, lengthy sentences for the “national leaders” may signal the downside of violent recklessness—yet for others, martyrdom beckons. And for politicians, the cycle of panic and reassurance—“MS-13 is coming,” then “MS-13 has been crushed”—offers little solace to residents caught in the crossfire.

Still, there is scope for mild optimism. The alacrity with which federal agents, local police, and prosecutors coordinated in these convictions has set a standard. National leaders jailed mean a disruption, at least temporarily, in the chain of violence. Community groups, too, gain a talking point as they try to redirect at-risk youth toward safer paths. That said, complacency would be both tempting and perilous.

The truth is that gangs like MS-13 are symptoms, not just causes. Until New York and the nation reckon with the lacunae—be they legal status, economic opportunity, or policing strategy—these victories, while necessary, will remain puny in the face of persistent threats.

The convictions signal an important, if incomplete, blow against brutal criminal networks. New York, with its flair for drama and resilience to menace, should celebrate judiciously—but never assume that one jury’s verdict can exorcise a hydra. ■